Shadow Children series Hope and Freedom

**A/N: It just would not stop consuming my thoughts as to what the finer details of Jen's final night alive were.**

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><p>Jen tried to stay focused on the road, despite the extreme lack of drivers at that hour. Carlos and Yolanda sat in the back, holding the signs for the rally, except for the extra three that sat in the trunk. Sean and Pat had told her they weren't going, and together with Luke, those three constructions of cardboard and wood couldn't help but nourish the fear she had been grabbing, and with a twist of its arm, forcing into a dark, iron-bared corner of her mind.<p>

"_What if most of us choose to stay hidden like Luke?_" Jen questioned herself, sinking deeper into the proverbial blackness that slowly flooded and consumed her from the inside out, her head almost completely under. Carlos spoke up as the last strands of her hair that refused to fall and drown in despair, disappeared as quickly as the blink of an eye.

"Are you alright Jen?" The boy questioned, nervous at how quiet their de facto leader had been throughout the night, the earliest traces of dawn appearing along the horizon. He had been expecting her to appear at his house with fires burning within her eyes, and a cocky grin that would give way to laughter at how close they were to their freedom, not the lips turned into a slight frown or the unfocused gaze of her eyes as if she were looking at something far off in the distance.

"Of course I am!" Jen suddenly spoke up, turning her head and smiling at them, "I have to save my voice for the rally if I plan on yelling for hours on end!" She laughed to both them and herself as she pulled herself up from the darkness, thinking to herself, "_I can't let myself fall into self-doubt now. We are so, so close to finally being alive, to being free._"

"Jen!" Yolanda yelled out, pointing at the road. Jen barely glimpsed the cow, before her head slammed into the steering wheel.

She woke up several minutes later to Carlos calling for her, and Yolanda shaking her. After a few deep breaths to replace the air that had been taken away by the sudden stop, the cow came into view. Blood had been forced to the skin by the impact, dying the white a crimson red, interrupted only by the black splotches and shards of colored glass she could assume were from the headlights. She reached and turned the keys, ignoring the pain in her head and ankle, only for it to sputter before dying. Whatever Carlos and Yolanda tried to say in the worried and anxious tones of their panicking voices, it became nothing more than nonsense to Jen as she reached over to the otherwise unoccupied passenger seat to grab her sign.

"Give me liberty or give me death", Jen said clearly, despite the disorientation she felt as she got out of the car, stumbling a moment as she felt out how much pressure she could put on her injured ankle.

"Why was that cow in the middle of the road like that?" Carlos questioned as he looked at it. He and Yolanda had on their seatbelts, essentially keeping them uninjured.

"I don't know, but the road isn't where it belongs." Yolanda said before she noticed Jen limping away from them and down the street.

"Come on," Jen said looking back over her shoulder, forehead beginning to bruise, "We don't have to walk far." The two looked beyond, seeing the grey marble building not far away. They smiled, before grabbing their signs and jogging for a few moments to catch up to Jen, who reciprocated at seeing people at the rally, as well as Carlos and Yolanda next to her; signs laying against their shoulders. "Soon we'll be free. Soon, I can walk around and show everyone who I am! Who we are!"

"What…" Jen didn't know where the numbness in her body came from, falling forward as she lost control. She reached to feel around beneath her, before pulling her hand back in front of her face. As the sound of assault rifles and marching jackboots assaulted her ears, and the crimson filled her vision, the pain began to come exponentially in waves. She tried to cry out, before gaging, her screams reduced to nothing but silent bubbles floating in the blood she began to cough up. When she regained her breath, blood slowly moving down her chin as it congregated into lines of red, her unsteady vision straightened with the widening of her pupils.

As the bullets seemed to slice everything along a horizontal line, blood dotted the ground, before being covered as it paint cans were being dumped upside down. One hand inched forward, before pulling the body attached as far as it could, before its sister repeated the process. After moving several feet, Jen couldn't pull herself anymore. She slowly lifted her head, the blood drops themselves deserting her as she looked at the president's house, before letting her head fall. Even the pain was beginning to subside now, the only thing left being the cold chill that began creeping up on her.

Using the last of the strength she could muster, Jen rolled herself over, looking at the sky in its orange robe as the sun could be seen halfway over the horizon. As she watched it, Jen couldn't help but begin speaking, if only so that her final thoughts wouldn't die in her mind, hidden away.

"I told you that hope meant nothing without action, and now I sit here waiting to die as I'm forced to eat those words."

Her mind wandered, traveling to the day she and Luke sat around playing board games. During one match, she remembered doing everything possible to win, but he triumphed because he had been planning the whole time, staying cautious and paying attention. Maybe that was why she had failed, because she had been too stubborn and sure of herself to know when things were going awry.

"Well, even if you can't hear, goodbye Luke Gardner. If when you get to where I'm going, you haven't done what I couldn't, and given the shadows the freedom I wanted, that if I'm lucky I might get from death…" A population policeman now stood over her, looking down at her lightly wheezing form, before pulling out his pistol at his side and cocking it. "I just might…" He pointed the pistol at her forehead. She looked at the sun, barely visible beyond the man's leg. "Lose my temper."

As that last gunshot echoed out, the sun began to leave the horizon, finally free for the first time since the seemingly eternal night began.


End file.

Shadow Children series, Angst, Drama